"But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort." (Harold Pinter)

The ground was dry, it would be some days before rain fell again, perhaps longer. As we walked through the field we saw the small shell, among the debris of the last harvest: was it murder, theft or accident?

You looked at me and said: “Just think, if it was ours, our egg, our unborn child?” I looked again, the pale colour of the thin shell, the fragility of the poor abandoned egg.